8 Great Board Games To Give And Receive in 2017

Lauren Orsini
, ContributorI write about the business of fandom.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Elan Lee

In 'Exploding Kittens,' have a volatile good time.

Take it from me: the board game fanatic on your list already has Monopoly and Settlers of Catan. If you’re going to give games this year, it’s time to think outside the box.

I’ve been lucky enough to test out some recent new titles before they reach most board gamers’ living room shelf. Here are eight of my picks for new board games any hobbyist would be happy to receive this holiday season.

Lauren Orsini

Inside the box.

Organ Attack

I’m not surprised that a game about body parts went “viral.” Created by indie cartoonist The Awkward Yeti, this game blew past its $12,000 Kickstarter goal to become one of 2017’s most highly anticipated card games. Through a combination of strategy and random chance, players attack others’ organs and defend their own while learning a bunch about human anatomy.

Organ Attack comes in a box that looks like a weighty medical tome, but there’s no knowledge required—just a tabletop, 2-6 players, and 20 minutes. Retails at big box stores for $35.

My friends and I have been playing Story Bowl for years—we just didn’t know that’s what it was called. A game that centers around jotting down inside jokes on scraps of paper, and then compelling your friends to fish them out of a bowl and act them out, has many iterations around North America. Story Bowl makes this memetic game more creative and personal by providing a deck of cards with prompts to help you brainstorm new phrases for the titular bowl.

Fit for 4 to 15 players ages 8 and up, it’s a lighthearted, portable game that takes 30 minutes and makes a great stocking stuffer at $15 on Amazon Prime.

Fog of Love is one of the most beautifully designed games I have played.

Fog of Love

Role-play your own romantic comedy with the most beautifully packaged game I’ve seen in years. High-quality wooden pieces and watercolor-illustrated cardstock set the mood for you and one friend to assume the roles of strangers at a meet-cute. After three dates and more than a few trying dramatic conflicts utilizing the Prisoner’s Dilemma, you and your partner will need to decide if it’s true love or time to part ways and see other fictional people.

This two player strategy game will occupy an entire evening, taking 60-120 minutes each time (and if it’s your first time, there’s a 60 minute tutorial, too). Retails for $50 at Walmart.

Enough conflict: team up with your friends in this survival game that requires everyone’s cooperation. Of course there’s one slight problem: in this harsh environment, survivors are prone to coming down with a case of the madness, which makes them act unpredictably. Players must work together to forage for food, craft survival items, and survive the long, scary night—even when it’s uncertain which allies can be trusted.

Ravine recently earned $300,000 on Kickstarter and promises to be a big 2018 title for 3-6 players in 30 minutes. It can be pre-ordered in the Ravine store.

Magic: The Gathering is one of the longest running and most well-known collectible card games out there, but it can take a lot of time and experience to play—for example, before you start, you need to build your own deck of cards to play with. Not so with ‘Archenemy,’ a game that takes all of the prep time out of Magic so players can focus on slinging spells at one another. It’s a game of good vs. evil where one player assumes the role of elder dragon Nicol Bolas while the other four players play as “planeswalkers” out to extinguish the dragon’s flames for good.

This four-player game takes 45-60 minutes to play and it’s multifunctional, too: it comes with 240 full-color Magic cards that can be used in other formats of play outside of the game. It retails for $50 on the Magic website and $45 at big box stores.

Perhaps interviewing for careers in your free time doesn’t sound like barrels of fun, but bear with me for a minute. Jobstacles is a compact, portable card game where players try to make themselves into the perfect candidate for a slew of bizarre jobs, highlighting some fairly unusual traits (example: “Believes the moon landing was faked”) that somehow make them right for the job. And at the same time that you’re talking yourself up, you can sabotage other players, too. It’s a little like Apples to Apples for corporate culture.

Jobstacles is a quick 15-minute game for 3-8 players and retails for $20 on Amazon Prime.

In 'Secret Hitler,' you and your friends play as liberals and fascists.

Secret Hitler

It’s no secret that ‘Secret Hitler’ is one of my favorite party games in years. It’s ostensibly a cooperative game where players work together in 1930s Germany to pass liberal policies. Of course, there are some hidden fascists in their ranks and even worse—one of your seemingly mild-mannered friends is covertly playing the role of Hitler. The bigger the group the tougher the guesswork, which is why this game is best played with 9 or 10 people.

Earning more than $4 million from backers, this game was a record-breaking Kickstarter back in 2015. Two years later it’s still living up to the hype. Boosted by webtoonist The Oatmeal’s bizarre illustrations, this irreverent card game will give you and your friends a giggle fit. You can opt for standard goofiness with the main deck or bawdy jokes with the NSFW add-on.

This game is good for 2 to 5 players (and up to 9 when you use an add-on deck), and takes 10 minutes to play—great for lightning rounds. Retails for $30 at big box stores.